Mount Mansfield, Vermont, from My Hotel Bedroom (Dec. 2017)

Saturday, August 11, 2012

As you know, I was captivated by Caroline's Literature and War Readalong last month and am participating this month. Luckily I was able to find the title scheduled to be discussed on August 31st, The Story of a Life by Aharon Appelfeld, who has lived in Israel since after World War II. Yes, he's a Holocaust survivor. He burrows deep into sensory memory for his description of his youngest years in this memoir, reminding me a bit of Marcel Proust. I'm enjoying it, mostly because it is so different from other Holocaust memoirs, of which I've read a large number.

And, the week of September 17-23, Caroline is hosting an Antonio Tabucchi Week, which will gather reflections from readers who have read any number of Tabucchi's oeuvre. I have never read or heard of this author and have read so very few novels by Italian writers, that I've ordered Pereira Declares, a novel set in Portugal during the Fascist 1930s. Why Portugal? Tabucchi adores Portugal, and is a professor of Portuguese literature. I know zilch about Portugal, other than a movie about the children of Fatima, and the fact that it has a long border on the ocean.

Caroline is having so much fun with these events that I think I might consider hosting one, if I'm able to get my readership back into fighting order.

6 comments:

Thanks a lot for mentioning my events. It should be a very interesting month reading wise. Both writers, Tabucchi and Applefeld are sytlists and well worth discovering. I'm very curious to see what event you will organize. Whatever it is, i hope yu will find participants. Of course we blog for ourselves but it still so much nicer when interested people join the discussion.Thanks for joining me.

About Me

I live in a beautiful mountainous wilderness region of northern New York. This environment perfectly suits all my outdoor interests: bushwhacking, hiking, alpine and cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, and the study of nature.
Since moving to the Adirondacks in 2005 from the Boston area, I still find plenty of time for reading, but far less time for writing and painting, though I still enjoy these activities.
Although I am a former educator, I am now a professional genealogist, specializing in New York and New England ancestries, from the 1600s through the twentieth century.